'Nearly 90{+2},' Merce Cunningham Dance review

DANCE REVIEW

Mary Ellen Hunt, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, November 3, 2011

Photo: Dylan Entelis, The Chronicle

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From left to right, Mellissa Toogood, John Hinrichs, and Silas Riener of The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs at Memorial Auditorium in Stanford , Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. The performance was the last by MCDC in California before the Company disbands this New Year's Eve. less

From left to right, Mellissa Toogood, John Hinrichs, and Silas Riener of The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs at Memorial Auditorium in Stanford , Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. The performance was ... more

Photo: Dylan Entelis, The Chronicle

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Rashaun Mitchell of The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs at Memorial Auditorium in Stanford , Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. The performance was the last by MCDC in California before the Company disbands this New Year's Eve. less

Rashaun Mitchell of The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs at Memorial Auditorium in Stanford , Calif., on Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2011. The performance was the last by MCDC in California before the Company ... more

Photo: Dylan Entelis, The Chronicle

'Nearly 90{+2},' Merce Cunningham Dance review

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Rarely does an audience have a chance to anticipate the final performance of a great work. But so it was on Tuesday night as the 13 members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company gave the company's final performance of Cunningham's last creation, "Nearly 90²," capping eight days of workshops, lectures and events at Stanford Lively Arts.

The company's two-year Legacy tour - which commenced at Cunningham's death in 2009 - continues until the end of this year, when the company will disband permanently. This last appearance at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium felt like a firm push forward from one of modern dance's most influential choreographers.

Perhaps it was the sense of the moment that brought a refreshing lyricism and intimacy to "Nearly 90²," the second iteration of a piece commissioned for Cunningham's 90th birthday. His brainy choreography and meticulously plotted trajectories have always required a high degree of concentration from dancers and audiences alike, but on Tuesday there was a special absorption written on the faces of the performers, a feeling of savoring the moment and being present in a way that Cunningham would have undoubtedly appreciated.

As always with much of his choreography, it is tempting to observe the pure movement - the sweeping scoops of the arms, the jittering prances and rapid-fire turns that roll the bodies across the stage - and to try to attach your own story. Truth be told, "Nearly 90²" could be about anything, but it seems most appropriate at this moment to see it as a piece about evolution and a metaphor for a shifting legacy that Cunningham himself set in motion.

On Tuesday night, careful execution of Cunningham's signature movements, the deep plie into a crouch, a sideways fall, the slow swim through space, was balanced by a certain exuberance. Dancers meet in a playful confrontation, or in tense trios, they fall into each other's arms with exquisite timing.

When "Nearly 90²" came to its abrupt conclusion, it received its due accolades, but underlying it all was the realization that all of these elements will never come together this way again, and that this, as always, was by Cunningham's design.

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